Tea Project - Lawrence Arts Center

Not everything goes together like tea and sugar.

A soldier back from Iraq served me hot tea

and sugar in a ceramic cup

where I sat,

the cups lined up on wooden racks

reminiscent of the Styrofoam cups

decorated by detainees in places

like Guantanamo.

He and others had made a cup

for every detainee,

he and others talked about

thousands or more, I was distracted

by girls in their dancing tights

slipping around and behind

and up the stairs to their class.

There was solitary and torture

and innocence, lost on me

as the afternoon sun came through tall windows

from behind me where I sat in the listening crowd

and me,watching the sunwashed white wall above.

I did not see the girl on the walkway

overhead, but then there came silently dancing

a shadow on that bright wall.

I lost count how many cups were mentioned,

one sat empty at the foot of my chair

still with a sip of tea and sugar gone cold.